Targeting ischemic cardiac diseases, a bone marrow mononuclear cell transplantation therapy and a cell transplantation therapy using endothelial progenitor cells (EPC) by collecting peripheral-blood stem cells have been applied in recent years. Therefore, a technique for cultivating a large amount of EPC has been particularly desired. The in vitro proliferation method of vascular endothelial progenitor cell from CD34 and/or CD133 positive cells developed by the present inventors has made it possible to provide an efficient culture technique of EPC (patent document 1). The method of analyzing dynamics in the differentiation of vascular endothelial cells invented by the present inventors has clarified the presence of endothelial cell-like large colony (differentiated EPC colony) forming cell and endothelial cell-like small colony (undifferentiated EPC colony) forming cell, which has enabled prediction and understanding of the treatment effect of cell transplantation (patent document 2). In addition, the present inventors have shown a method of efficiently proliferating CD34 and/or CD133 positive cells from bone marrow mononuclear cells (patent document 3).
On the other hand, it has also been reported that the revascularization capacity of EPC is enhanced by cocultivating EPC and CD3 positive-CD31 positive cells called angiogenic T cells and present in a CD34 negative cell population, and the CD34 negative cell population is suggested to contain a cell that enhances the ability of EPC (non-patent document 1).